


Five places Rose and Ten have stopped for chips

by vtn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-19
Updated: 2010-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:45:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time traveler snack breaks.  For Helen, as it was her idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five places Rose and Ten have stopped for chips

**1\. **London, 1890. It's evening and there are just candles in the little tavern, throwing shadows over Rose's and the Doctor's faces while they share fish and chips over a sticky table. There was this nasty tangle with shapeshifters and it was all very exciting and they went on trains, but the way they both keep clinging to their chairs is proof enough they're glad to be once again stationary.

"It's funny," Rose muses, focusing somewhere beyond the Doctor's left shoulder, "We're here practically a hundred years before I'm even born, and having fish and chips. Only it's not fish and chips, because fish and chips you have to wrap up in newsprint."

"And you aren't even eating the fish," the Doctor points out.

"Yeah, well. Maybe I know you're so fond of it."

"And maybe—maybe I know you're so fond of chips. You are, aren't you?"

"Course I am." Rose eats three to prove it, licking her lips, which makes the Doctor shift a little in his seat and raise his eyebrows.

"Well then, we should do chips more often, don't you think?"

"Mm," she says, "More often. Yeah," and leans forward to brush away a stray strand of his hair.

 

**2\. ** There's this stand off in a corner in Raxacoricofallapatorius where the chips are steaming hot and they're free, too, because the vendor likes Rose's smile. (Or maybe it's the Doctor's he likes. It's taken both of them to manage the order—Rose can't stop giggling. (Rose might just be a little smashed.))

"Are you trying to feed me chips, Rose Tyler?" the Doctor accuses, wiggling his finger at her. Fingers? Finger.

"I can't see straight," she manages. "Can't tell if it's you or me."

"No, no, definitely trying to feed me chips. Well, _have at it_ then." He squeezes his eyes shut and opens his mouth wide, blinking one eye open when it appears that Rose is missing his mouth.

"Your mouth keeps going all over the place," she says, biting her lip in frustration. "Tell it to stop it, won't you?"

"I command you to stop evading my friend," the Doctor says, pointing at his mouth sternly. "Now, behave, or I'm not talking to you."

"I know what to do," says Rose, and she kisses him—quite accurately, I might add.

"Oh, that's _salty_," the Doctor says, after a moment. He takes a chip from Rose's cup and tosses it in his mouth, chewing tentatively. "Yes," he says, swallowing, "Very salty. Needs—oh, what's it called," he snaps his fingers, "Haven't had any in ages, _mustard_! Yes, chips and mustard!"

"You're so esc—eccskentri—essentrisc—_weird_," Rose says, laughing.

"It's in the job description. Or—_or_ maybe I just enjoy it. Like these chips! These chips are _good_!" The Doctor grins.

 

**3\. **London, 2006.

"Now I know you don't do dinner, but don't you think you could just, just once, stay around for a snack?"

"Mm, and what snack would that be?" The Doctor smiles slyly. "No chance it's…chips, is it?"

"How'd you know?" Rose gives him a playful shove in the side, laughing.

"Oh, I'm just that good."

They find a stand and a little black iron table under a rainbow umbrella and share a big plastic cup of chips in the summer sun while people walk around them, carrying bags or towing small children or tapping furiously at their PDAs.

"I'm lucky," says Rose, because a bag from the shop where she used to work has just caught her eye. She thinks about hanging clothes on racks and scanning price tags and clicking the gun to take off security locks. It's on one side of a gap and on the other side are sonic screwdrivers and Slitheen and Daleks and a little blue box that's bigger on the inside and travels through space and time.

"Are you?" The Doctor narrows his eyes, or maybe he's just squinting into the sun.

"I am."

"You're right. You are. The chips here are at least as good as the ones on Raxacoricofallapatorius! Probably better. I don't know. Are they better?"

Rose just shakes her head. Yes, she is.

 

**4\. ** "Are you saying," Rose says, chewing on a fat vinegar-soaked chip, "That they named the _planet_ Francis Bacon?"

"It's not a planet, it's a moon," the Doctor insists. "But yes, Francis Bacon, couldn't miss it, could tell you the name in my sleep, I could."

"When _do _you ever sleep, anyways?" Rose's brow wrinkles. "Oh…want a chip?"

"Sure." He takes one and gulps it down. "No wonder you like these so much. Chips! Who would have thought? Could only be humans! You take a potato, and cut it into rectangular pieces, and _fry_ it!" This description is accompanied by hand gestures. "It's genius, is what it is."

"I asked you a question," she says, smirking.

"Oh, I sleep whenever I get the time. Which is rare!" He runs a hand through his hair. "Too many other interesting things to do. You'd be surprised how comfortable it is in the TARDIS at night, though."

"How do you even know when it's night?" The Doctor looks affronted.

"I _have_ a watch, you know." (As if that should explain everything.)

 

**5.** London, 4,050,000,002.

London had built skyward all it could, so the humans of the future excavated underneath and kept building down towards the center of the Earth. It's a jumble of…

"It's like the rhyme you have. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

"And a silver sixpence in your shoe," Rose finishes.

"Oh yes, I've got one of those." The Doctor slips off one shoe and shakes out a coin into his hand. "I've got chips, too. For both of us."

Wind whistles through the buildings and Rose looks down, over caving rooftops and rusted steeples and junk and unlit houses with broken windows and twisted TV antennas.

"London, four _billion _years in the future, and chips," she says, looking first at the Doctor and then up at the grey-green, smog-choked sky. And this is what everything becomes, this is what he's _witnessed_ everything become. Or will, soon enough. "I'm not sure I'm hungry."

"Come on, then." 

Rose takes the cup wordlessly, holding it between her hands, and stares out at the city, at the trickle that's the Thames, at the creaking London Eye. She doesn't say anything for a long time.

AMS

June 14, 2007 

 

 


End file.
